I am interested in finding out what other organizations are doing to develop first line supervisors,as well as those in leadership positions,in terms of making professional development mandatory, and if so, in what subject matter.

Thank You,

Dianne

Making supervisory/management development mandatory is rarely successful. Management development should be aligned with your company's strategic initiatives and managers should be held accountaable in the balanced scorecard process, if you have one. Professional devleopment should address the performance gaps,that is determined through a formal needs analysis process.

Hi DBK -- this is no different than any other performance management. You have to analyze the situation to pinpoint what they need and whether or not they need anything at all. Mandating that people must develop themselves doesn't do much good if it isn't linked to the bottom line. You find out what the company goals are and what these roles need to do in order to acheive those goals. What are the best practices for acheiving those goals? Then you assess what they are doing now and compare it to what they ought to be doing. Analyze the gap... there's a lot more to this, of course. Performance Management, by Robinson and Robinson is an excellent resource. Good luck.

I'm sad to see the comment that "making supervisory/management development mandatory is rarely successful." I do agree that professional development should be tied to strategic goals and balanced scorecard initiatives. However, I think what's really missing in that analysis is that we're managing people first and foremost, and it's those people - with all of their human complexities - who are going to affect our numbers and ultimately determine whether we meet our goals. So it really is necessary to make professional development of front line supervisors mandatory because I guarantee that, in any organization, there are a lot of people who've attained those positions without developing many people skills - particularly those involving motivating and coaching. The result is often low employee satisfaction, high turnover, and subpar performance. In fact, studies have shown that the relationship an employee has with their immediate superivsor plays a huge role in their decision to stay with a job or not so not educating those people is really gambling with the future of your company.

Two places I've found a lot of good info about what different organizations do for mgmt development are ASTD's T+D magazine and the website Workforce Management Online (http://www.workforce.com). I'd also recommend to anyone Fournies' book "Coaching for Improved Work Performance" which I think should be required reading for any front-line mgmt person.

I'm not sure I understand the concept of "making it mandatory." It makes it sounds like they have a choice in the matter. As an employee, you are expected to perform whatever tasks are required of you, limited only by your contract or job description.

Although that is, in itself a fallacy, as most job descriptions contain the caveat "and whatever else is deemed necesary by management.

I do believe the attitude of "mandatory" training has come about from the culture of poor training. Many , many people I have worked with have a VERY poor attitude towards training and see it as a waste of time. Having sat through a good amount of training, I tend to agree. There are times when a training session will come up and, if I know who the trainer is, I'll do what I can to get out of it, rather than be trapped in that room for 7 hours as my brain goes numb and I lose the feeling in my fingers and toes.

What's happened, as a result, is SO many staff attempt to avoid this horrid situation, that management is forced to make training "mandatory" and track who attends or does not with disciplinary results.

It's the easiest solution to the problem, as most management do not comprehend that training can be fun, interesting and educational. So rather than take their training department up on the task, they just make the trainings "mandatory."

If there is an impression within your company that training "sucks" and that most employees would rather gnaw their arms off than attend another training session, then I'd suggest that the training department should look at what they can do to improve delivery and satisfaction.